To those that say FF14 is not a big dog in MMO's

[Penthea]

I did not "leave" WOW.

I quit in total and complete disgust.

Yep. I didn't leave WoW either. WoW left me. It's not a game for players like myself anymore. I was a casual player there too, though I occasionally dabbled in normal mode raiding while it was current. I did that ALOT during Legion. BfA was a dumpster fire so I didn't really bother with much of anything. Shadowlands...I was gone less than 2 weeks in. I don't raid hardcore here or take part in Extremes often, but I always feel like I'm progressing my character in some way, which is something WoW hasn't allowed me to do for 2-3 years. I don't feel insulted just by playing this game, so...not a hard decision to make there.

These posts hit very close to home for me. I did raid hardcore in WoW for a long time but even during that point I was frustrated that for so long the only good content was raids. When I wasn't raiding I had so little to do that was fun. Challenge modes were great but when you got gold in everything you had no reason to go back. Mythic + looks great on paper, but the WoW community's obsession with the meta has made getting involved very difficult and frankly toxic at times. And the community's obsession with the meta directly goes back to Blizzard treating the game as if raiding is the only worthy goal to have.

I didn't even consciously leave retail WoW. For a time I played WoW and FFXIV at the same time. As the months passed I was playing WoW less and less and one day I realised I had not logged in to that game in several months. I just didn't miss it. I finally found FFXIV, a mmo that has excellent content that isn't aimed at only high end pve, and the community wasn't obsessed with the meta. It's actually that mindset the WoW community has that ruined Classic WoW for me. I was playing a meta healer, but that was because I liked the spec not because I wanted to follow the meta. I hated watching all the crap non meta classes and specs were getting. I didn't leave retail in disgust, but I did leave Classic in disgust. What I miss about WoW is an era that is long gone and will never be seen again with the current decision makers in power.

I came back for Shadowlands and while the questing was really good, I enjoyed it a lot, I once again found the game to be lacking in engaging content when I got max lvl. The only goals presented to me were: high end pve, pvp, or do braindead world quests for cosmetic stuff. The first requires engaging with a community I have no interest in spending time with as I know too well how awful they can be, I have no interest in pvp, and the last one is just a mindless grind. Once again I found myself playing WoW less and less just like before and when I realised this was happening again I unsubbed. I'm actually still salty about this. WoW has so much potential, and it did once live up to it. But as it is now it's not the game for me. I'm happy for those who still enjoy it, but I know most of them would enjoy it even more if it went back to the quality Blizzard became known for.

Well at least Diablo 4 looks like it will be really good.